State of the MLS Run In: 8 Weeks To Go

by sidereal on Aug 30, 2011 12:00 PM PDT in Major League Soccer: News & Analysis

As the regular season winds down I'm going to be posting a weekly summary of the some of the data and predictions we're generating, which should give you some context going into each week of games.

Previous Week

Playoff & Trophy Probabilities

This is each team's up to date odds of making the playoffs, winning the Supporter's Shield, and winning the MLS Cup based on simulating the remainder of the season 10000 times.

Avg Pts for Playoffs		43.76
	Avg Pos	Avg Points	Playoff %	Change	Supporters Shield %	MLS Cup %
Los Angeles	1.30	64.01	100.0	--	77.28	21.12
Seattle	2.37	59.25	100.0	--	16.63	13.40
FC Dallas	3.28	56.90	100.0	+0.3	3.74	11.21
Real Salt Lake	4.69	53.23	99.21	+4.28	1.92	7.53
Columbus	5.65	51.83	98.8	+0.18	0.24	12.37
Colorado	6.63	49.76	97.54	-0.77	0.03	4.81
Kansas City	7.45	48.20	89.65	-3.65	0.05	9.71
Philadelphia	7.58	47.97	86.89	+5.32	0.10	7.75
DC United	9.32	45.45	66.33	+6.07	0.01	5.77
New York	9.84	44.09	60.35	+7.16	0.0	3.38
Houston	10.43	43.51	49.08	-5.77	0.0	1.71
Portland	11.82	41.60	23.91	+12.36	0.0	0.27
Chivas USA	12.02	40.50	21.06	-30.30	0.0	0.69
Chicago	13.54	37.77	6.19	+4.59	0.0	0.28
San Jose	15.11	34.67	0.90	+0.27	0.0	0.01
New England	16.12	32.18	0.07	+0.04	0.0	0.0
Toronto FC	16.83	30.86	0.0	--	0.0	0.0
Vancouver	17.03	29.75	0.0	--	0.0	0.0

Teams Eliminated

Teams that have been eliminated by three decreasingly stringent standards. Read here for more details.

Mathematical Elimination (Unable to make the playoffs in any scenario)
None
Effective Elimination (Unable to make 40 points even with perfect play)
None
Projected Elimination (less than 1% chance of making the playoffs in simulation)
San Jose, New England, Toronto FC, Vancouver

Remaining Strength of Schedule

Using the same simulation, we can also determine remaining schedule strength by seeing how a league average team would do with each team's remaining schedule. Teams at the top have schedules against which an average team got the most PPG, meaning we think they have the easiest remaining schedule.

	Avg Team Points	Matches	Pts / Match
Seattle	10.297	7	1.471
New York	11.725	8	1.466
FC Dallas	10.244	7	1.463
Kansas City	11.458	8	1.432
Colorado	8.38	6	1.397
Columbus	11.163	8	1.395
DC United	13.79	10	1.379
Philadelphia	13.754	10	1.375
Portland	10.963	8	1.37
Chicago	10.918	8	1.365
Toronto FC	8.181	6	1.363
New England	10.908	8	1.363
Chivas USA	9.457	7	1.351
Vancouver	10.785	8	1.348
Los Angeles	10.712	8	1.339
Real Salt Lake	13.04	10	1.304
San Jose	10.243	8	1.28
Houston	8.815	7	1.259

Seattle's First Round Opponent

This is the likelihood of each team being the first playoff opponent for Seattle (either in the preliminary round or — more likely — in the Conference Semifinals).

	Matchup %
FC Dallas	50.1%
Real Salt Lake	18.9%
Colorado	11.0%
Los Angeles	4.0%
DC United	2.7%
Houston	2.7%
New York	2.5%
Portland	1.9%
Philadelphia	1.9%
Chivas USA	1.8%
Kansas City	1.7%

Cascadia Cup Odds

This is the % chance for each of the Cascadia teams of winning the rivalry cup.

	Odds
Seattle	65.22
Portland	19.08
Vancouver	15.70

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Comments

I have little to add

But this is awesome. Thanks!

by lysander on Aug 30, 2011 12:39 PM PDT reply actions

I try to keep this pretty consistent

so I’ll put summary/comments here. Though maybe I’ll move them to the main article next time. Not sure.

Chivas’ playoff hopes got smashed after two consecutive 1-0 losses. Portland’s the biggest beneficiary despite not playing. They also benefit from Houston losing. Seattle’s still hovering on the edges of the Supporters Shield race after destroying Columbus.

FCD is now over a 50% chance of being the first round opponent in the playoffs. The Brek Shea hate must flow.

The Next Cascadia Cup match is between the Sounders and Whitecaps in Vancouver at the end of the month. If Seattle wins, the Cup is ours. The final match is a week later when Portland also travels to Vancouver.

Nos Audietis

by sidereal on Aug 30, 2011 12:47 PM PDT reply actions

Columbus + % Chance

How does Columbus get a higher % Chance after losing with a walloping last week? I understand that both SKC lost also….but isn’t a loss a bad thing (especially one where you had a -4 GD)?

by Toxtr3m34u on Aug 30, 2011 12:54 PM PDT reply actions

My logic (I don't know sidereals calculations) tells me

If the 2nd place team in the conference loses along with you (and you’re leading), you don’t lose any points to them and there are less games to play. That would increase your odds of making the playoffs strictly by forcing them to score the same amount of points in less games. GD might mitigate that % gain, but it would be a gain none the less.

by B Money on Aug 30, 2011 1:00 PM PDT up reply actions

And my logic is about as awesome as my punctuation.

by B Money on Aug 30, 2011 1:01 PM PDT up reply actions

The only way Columbus doesn't make the playoffs

is if the entire rest of the competitive East rises up and nearly wins out. Anytime any other east team doesn’t do that, they get a bump regardless of what they do. The fact that most of the Eastern Conference lost last week makes up for their own loss.

Nos Audietis

by sidereal on Aug 30, 2011 1:08 PM PDT up reply actions

Yep

Everything stays the same points wise, but there is one less game for everyone to try and catch up.

by agtk on Aug 30, 2011 1:24 PM PDT up reply actions

Also, what may factor,

Columbus lost on the road, SKC at home.

by Matthew on Aug 30, 2011 2:07 PM PDT up reply actions

That Matchup % is pretty depressing.

Chances of us not playing Dallas, RSL, or LA is 27%.

I love MLS, but hate their playoff seeding.

by jordanR on Aug 30, 2011 1:59 PM PDT reply actions

Interesting that...

We smash the Crew but they have basicaly the same chance of wining the cup as us still. Im sure this has to do with them going through the week east to reach the finals. So Lame.

by MurrayD on Aug 30, 2011 2:15 PM PDT reply actions

Great read

I gotta say, I would love for RBNY to not make the playoffs though. Pretty sure there are many people who would like to see them flop as well.

by Timothy Winning Voyles on Aug 30, 2011 2:16 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs

% change

Thanks sidereal. I enjoy these posts. Any chance you could include % change for Supporters Shield % and MLS Cup %

by ACC on Aug 30, 2011 3:22 PM PDT reply actions

Could

but I sort of ran out of column space. The Shield will probably resolve itself in the next couple of weeks (either LA will run away with it or we’ll make it more of a 50/50 proposition).

Nos Audietis

by sidereal on Aug 30, 2011 4:55 PM PDT up reply actions

Playoff percent shows 100% for top 3

but that must be rounded up from 99.9999999? Much like Vancouver is still not mathematically eliminated, we’re not mathematically guaranteed are we?

by chrisperry1983 on Aug 30, 2011 3:29 PM PDT reply actions

Sort of

Those weren’t rounded, so it meant that in 10000 simulations, none of those 3 failed to make the playoffs even once. If I ran it a million times they might miss a few times. We haven’t technically clinched, but we’re more likely to make the playoffs than Vancouver is to miss them.

So yeah, we’re in the playoffs.

Nos Audietis

by sidereal on Aug 30, 2011 4:54 PM PDT up reply actions